Cosco reports February fall in containers handled in Piraeus
Cosco Group announced on Wednesday a 2.8 percent increase in the number of containers handled by its subsidiary in Piraeus (Piraeus Container Terminal) in the first couple of months this year from the same period in 2016. The total number of containers handled came to 546,600, against 531,700 last year.
However, that increase is exclusively attributed to January 2017, when container traffic had increased 12 percent year-on-year. In February container activity declined 5.4 percent to 264,800 containers, against about 280,000 in February 2016.
That was the first monthly year-on-year drop since November 2015, when a decline of 4.2 percent from November 2014 was recorded. The main reason for the drop seen last month was the fact that February had 28 days in 2017, against 29 days in 2016, which translates into the loss of 7,000-8,000 containers over one day.
In 2016 container handling in Piraeus, the biggest port Cosco operates outside of China, recorded an all-time high of 3.47 million units, up 14.4 percent on 2015 figures. In the period from 2007 to 2016 it grew by a total of 167.7 percent.
